This past weekend consisted of various discussion with the (grown) children about Halloween costumes for the grands and some early planning for the holidays, and it hit me, we are close to the 2018 holiday season. This year has flown by, way too quickly. And now there are only 12 weeks until Black Friday, or for many people, six paydays. But before you close this article, call me “scrooge”, and delete me from your friends list because I want to chat about the Black Friday in September, give me a moment, and I will explain. So why is “Black Friday” my measure of the season and not the actual festivities on, say, Christmas or Hanukah?? Because that shopping day after the turkey traditionally “kicks off” the holiday season. And the spending begins for many. And we love to spend.

In 2017, consumers spent an average of $967.00, between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, accounting for approximately 20% of ALL annual online shopping those days. The amount budgeted on gifts for children has averaged about $500.00 per child, relatively unchanged over the last few years. But gifts aside, there are other expenses around the big season from food, wrapping paper, shipping costs, travel expenses, and new outfits that don’t always make it into the average household budget. In fact, last year almost two-thirds of the average holiday budget went to “non-gift” spending.

All these articles quaintly mention the “holiday budget” as if this was planned in advance. I really don’t know anyone, myself included, who likes a holiday budget. Because sometimes I see something and think, “wow, this is great for…”and want to purchase that thing. For many people, the total holiday cost is really only unveiled after the revelry as the statements start coming in the mail. And the reality comes in January that for too many people, they blew out past the budget, and accumulated quite a bit of debt for the season. The average American woke up in January 2018 with over $1050.00 in DEBT. Not what was spent as a whole, but what they spent in the hole to finance the season. For the 78% of average American families living paycheck to paycheck, an additional $1000.00 in debt, and at incredibly high interest rates, is a burden.

Good news, we all have twelve weeks, or an average of six paychecks to squirrel away some cash. But even better? Companies with seasonal hiring opportunities are at the best it has been in years, and with low unemployment, retailers are competing for seasonal employees. The reported average wage is $12.00/ hour for temps, but Costco is reportedly paying $20.00 and hour!

It’s not too early to start to plan the season. And not just where you are going for dinner on which days. It’s time to think about how to pay for it. Too many people raid emergency funds and take loans from retirement accounts to fund the holidays. And because these holidays come every year, it can become a vicious cycle. But, with all this time available before the shopping and revelry begins, that second job, or extra shift, or part-time side hustle may be just what you need to make this season “Merry and Bright.”

source: imtresidential.com

The federal government stopped mailing annual Social Security statements to everyone back in 2011. They are still available, but you have to use the internet.  I don’t mention this earnings statement because I believe the Social Security program is solvent, or have a prediction whether it will be fixed, or even necessarily believe any “projected benefits” will ever be received by the time I am ready to retire. What the statement will tell you is how much you have earned each year, as reported to the Social Security Administration, since you started working and reporting income to the SSA.

We can go back (waaaay back) to 1990 and look at the average net income earned by average Americans over the last 26 years. The SSA reports $20,172.11 in 1990 and $46,640.94 in 2016. Meaning that for average Americans, we take home more than double each year now than we did in 1990. On the bottom of the SSA statement there is a number- your total earnings to date. In other words what you have earned over your working life.

If you worked and earned an average income from 1990-1999 you would have brought home about $209,056.00. From 2000-2009 about $351,192.00. And from 2010-2016 about $304,037.00.  So, if we added the average net income earned and taken home by average Americans from 1990-2016, we get a mind blowing $864,289.00.  Well over three quarters of a million dollars. And many people earn well above that annual average.

So, what do we KEEP? According to the latest statistics? Not much. Some of us have a 401k with auto withdrawal and a match at work. But, around 20% of those with a 401k have loans against the accounts taken to cover financial emergencies!  Savings accounts are in bad shape as well, in 2017 about 57% of Americans have less than $1,000.00 in savings.

Where is it all going? To service debt. At various interest rates, for various reasons. Average Americans are paying their dollars to cars, homes, student loans, credit cards and personal loans. Excluding a mortgage payment, we send creditors a whopping $1181.00 per MONTH or $14,172.00 a year. Many Americans send much more than that to others.

It’s eye-opening, or at least it was for us. Debt is taking our income, payments that we can do other things with. Like save. Or pay cash for cool things. Or support organizations we feel strongly about. If you are ready to take back your income, you can start anytime. Even if you are still paying oodles of interest and have $1.87 in an IRA right now, its never too late to start. Its never too late to grab a hold of your hard-earned income with a plan to take back your earnings from the current situation.

If your income is flying away the moment after payday, it’s time to make it behave. Make a monthly budget and write down where each dollar goes. Give it a job. Be the smart boss over your hard-working money. Your money likes to have a job. “This month you little dollar, yes YOU, will pay the water bill! YAY!”. If you want an easy to use, free online budgeting tool, I recommend Every Dollar.  Money stress really begins when you run out of dollars before you run out of jobs for them to do. Run out of jobs and reassign your money where you want it to work!

graphic from www.indianapublicmedia.org